“Why?”
“Because,” declared La Rouque, “You're soaked, look at yourself.”
“It does not matter,” said Emile, “I am going like this... to the fair!”
“Alone?”
“Naturally.”
“And Bebert?” asked Irma. “You haven't met him?”
“Bebert?”
La Rouque explained: “I've been to Tango's to see him and he is not there. It's annoying to look for him and not to find him. What do you think? He must be in one of the booths, shooting, while I am wearing myself out here with my feet in the water.”
Emile was about to speak.
“There, there... go away,” said La Rouque quickly, “here are people coming.”
And she crossed the road to accost, opposite, an American sailor who was standing against the wall laughing to himself and counting up dollars in his little cap.
Emile went his way, but he turned back several times to see if La Rouque had decided the sailor to follow her, stopped, waited. They disappeared at last, together. Emile felt relieved. He went off again. Women, placed at intervals under the lamps of a hotel, accosted him.
“But no,” grunted Emile.
He went sadly along the houses, the collar of his overcoat turned up, both hands in his pockets and just when he was thinking about it, he found himself face to face, on the step of a house, with a woman, who without saying a word seized him by the sleeve and pulled him inside.
“Well, what is it?” he protested.
The woman shut the door.
“You will drink a glass?” she asked.
Emile wished to go.
“Oh come, you have time enough for that,” the creature assured him. “Take a bock, it's fivesous.”
He perceived two other women, and wallowing on shabby benches, several individuals, half asleep, who looked at him without moving.
A horse-shoe shaped bar took up a great part of the space and in the background lit by a petroleum lamp, one could see a room with a bed in it and dirty old curtain.
Emile drank silently, standing at the bar; the woman whispered to him: “Will you stay a moment?”
“I don't want to,” said Emile.
“We'd go into the room,” she proposed, “we'd be all right there. You'll see. We'd only have to draw the curtain. You don't want to?”
“No, I don't.”
“Then you'll pay for a bock?”
She poured it out herself, picked up the pieces of fifty centimes which Emile threw on the counter, emptied her glass, then half opening the door, continued her singular traffic without any great success.
“Salut,” said Emile.
The woman winked at him: “You will come again, won't you?” she whispered. “One evening or in the afternoon when you are free. You would take the two women with you?Hein?”
“Yes, yes... another time,” Emile assured her. “That's it, it's understood.”
He came out of the shop—it had as a signboard the words “Aux Belles Poules”—in an indescribable state of stupor and prostration.
“It's not believable,” he told himself with disgust, “a nest of vermin, of disease.”
The thought of this place, which he had entered unawares, pursued him. When he thrust it aside it returned, and so vividly that he was forced to remember the details. Those men for instance, lying brutishly on the benches, those creatures wearing torn and filthy black silk dresses, the room in the dim lamp light, the counter, the looking-glasses eaten away by a grey leprosy, the smell, the atmosphere of the place, all this he evoked in spite of himself. Then he thought of Irma with the American sailor, and felt a strange pain which he could not explain.
Certainly at first sight, no comparison was possible between La Rouque and the sordid prostitutes of the “Belles Poules,” but Emile ended by telling himself that the difference was not so great as he had imagined. He despised himself for the thought. He felt vexed, humiliated. La Rouque was worth a thousand times more than those women. She was free. She could choose her clients whereas they had not even the possibility of doing so, and thus were more degraded.
He did not pity them, on the contrary, he felt angry with them, because they reminded him of his sister and the profession she had chosen, for, now that he had seen her at work, he felt a sickly commiseration for her. Whatever he did, his mind always returned to her, and he judged her, and this was so painful to him, that at length he crossed over to the other side of the street, went towards the fair, and mixing with the crowd, continued his interrupted promenade.
But it was already past eleven o'clock, and soon the half hour struck. Emile wandered under the vaulted roof of the Metro gallery. The crowd was not so thick, and circulated at its ease. He walked unconsciously. The lights were going out, the covers were put on the organs, the shutters were drawn over the photographer's show case. Only the report of the guns cracking was heard in the half silence, and the sound of the wind shaking the canvas made a confused, splashing noise.
Girls crossed the street blowing wooden trumpets. They were accompanied by men in sweaters, the collars and sleeves showing under their mackintoshes. Some of them sang, others kissed their lovers. Emile followed them with his glance as far as the cafe Pierrot which they entered laughing. Then some Arabs, gathered in front of a three card trick player, scattered slowly one by one. There were only five or six shops still lighted up, a fortune teller under his big umbrella, and a little merry-go-round which was still working and on which a soldier was seated. Emile approached the merry-go-round. A motionless old man near a musical box was looking at his only client with a sulky expression. He invited Emile to take a turn, and, as Emile did not answer, pulled out his watch and looked at the time.
It was a ridiculous merry-go-round, the sort one sees on the beach in the summer or in the squares to attract children. It was not lit up. The animals, rabbits, naturally, with erect ears, which seemed gigantic, were its only charm. Cabbages and enormous carrots were made into little coaches where one could sit down. Each of the rabbits wore round its neck a big bow of a different color, and a little bell, which did not ring and on which a name was inscribed in golden letters.
Emile could read as the rabbis went past him:Janot, Jeannette, Mere-Lapine, Isidore and as he looked, an obscure feeling was born in him. He thought mechanically about a past so distant that he fell into an odd waking dream. He saw himself at the age when he had hoisted his little sister onto an identical merry-go-round.
Yes, at Belleville. It was the same merry-go-round and this same old man perhaps who was now yawning and seemed so weary. The music as well. He suddenly thought he recognized it because of the way it was playing. It was so weak, so feeble, so confidential that it seemed to be muffled, to be playing from somewhere very far off, out of time, out of the world. Emile was filled with a great uneasiness, a great disturbance, and emotion at once sweet and bitter and heart-rending, and the old man, after he had put his oil-lamp out, and gazed at this individual who had been perplexing him for a long while, was obliged to touch him gently on the shoulder.
He said:“He ben my little man, you'll have to go away, it's all over.”
XX
Emile went off at once taking long strides. He crossed the boulevard without noticing that he was on the wrong side and walking unconsciously, thinking of something else, he turned the corner of the cafe Pierrot, which was brilliantly lit, without recognizing it. Then he suddenly noticed abrasserie full of people and felt an irresistible longing for company. He went in, chose a table, sat down and looked at his neighbors.
A smell of cheroots, of pipes, of sour beer seized him by the throat. Emile was at first inconvenienced by it, but the couple on his right drew closer together to make room for him and this attention touched him. He thanked them effusively.
On his left was seated a young man of dubious appearance who seemed sad and downcast. He gazed at Emile absent-mindedly and Emile surveyed him out of the corner of an eye. Then he called a waiter and
ordered a glass of wine.
“In this place,” said the young man to whom Emile had not spoken, “most of the people drink beer yeast.”
“Ah, why?”
“It purifies the blood,” said the young man.
Emile did not answer. He began to look round the room. The people there were as a matter of fact absorbing beer yeast, a thick liquid which looked like soup. They smoked and played cards. The clients were mostly traders of the quarter with their wives at their side; prostitutes, gentlemen who lacked refinements, pale adolescents. Emile looked and listened. There was a loud buzzing in his ears which lulled and benumbed him, plunged him into a state which was almost sleep. Little by little he forgot himself and was filled with a dull sensation of comfort.
“Yes,” said the boy on his left slowly, “yeast is very good for boils and humor. People come to thisbrasserie on purpose for that.”
“Ah, yes?”
“Of course,” the unknown assured him.
Emile asked: “You as well? Do you come here for yeast?”
“As a matter of fact,” said he, “I haven't come to drink yeast. I am here to meet a woman. D'you understand?”
He yawned, hid his face in his hands, then smiling sadly, declared: “Only she hasn't come, the bitch! She doesn't care! She's let me down.”
“Oh, no,” said Emile gently, “have a little patience, ladies are always late. They want to be more desired.”
“Oh come!”
“Certainly.” The unknown shrugged his shoulders.
“Don't you believe me?” asked Emile. “Ladies...”
“That one,” grunted the young man, “it would astonish me if she came.”
“Why?”
“Because I'd shoot her if she did,” he muttered.“Va! She knows it quite well and she won't risk it. I'd put a bullet in her.”
“Why?”
“There, look at that,” said the surprising individual plunging a hand into his pocket and bringing out a revolver.
Emile turned his head aside.
“With this plaything,hein?” went on the other, “there is a chance that I could give her her little lot, isn't there?”
“And then?”
“What then?”
“You,” answered Emile who was bored by this conversation. “You'll be arrested.”
The young man sneered. He hid his weapon, and staring at a vague spot in front of him: “I won't be arrested,” he said fiercely, “that I assure you!”
“Go on,” said Emile, “It doesn't depend on you.”
“Sometimes...”
“That's not reasonable.”
“I would kill myself,” said the boy then, “and the proof...” He felt in the pockets of his jacket and pulled out several very crumpled documents, letters and envelopes, which he unfolded, and handed to Emile.
“Look at that—” coming closer on the bench... “this letter is for the police, to say that I've willfully murdered the girl Poiremat, Cecile, and committed suicide. I've thought of everything. As for the letters, they are from Cecile.
He read over one of them, then pointing at a sentence which he judged particularly offensive: “'What do you expect me to say, I can't belong to you as I did in the past, because with Albert my life is safer than with you. And he manages to make himself respected, Albert. He is just to everyone, serious, always polite. He is a reasonable man. He has promised to marry me. You never managed to make me happy or you didn't want to. I understand that you only cared for my money and that as long as you could get it out of me...'”
“The bitch!” exclaimed the reader in a hollow voice.
“'As long as you could get it out of me, it was all the same to you how I earned it. Think of how you used to treat me when I came home without asou. The funny thing is that I put up with your ill-treatment for so long, but now it is no use to insist. I'm not afraid. Albert knows who you are, and he is ready to have it out with you when you want to, because if you try to bother me it will be quickly fixed.'”
“Would you believe it?” he said then, in a spiteful and toneless voice.
“You took hersous away?” asked Emile discreetly. “Is that true?”
“Bedame!” exclaimed the young man, “you don't imagine that I would give her money? Ah, you are going strong all the same! You exaggerate!”
“No,” said Emile. “In this letter, your friend complains that she wasn't happy with you. It's a good reason.”
“What?”
“Well, this woman, she wanted to be well considered, respected. She does not hide it from you.” He added, as if regretfully: “All women are like that... I know them... they've all got it in their heads that they want to be happy.”
“Happy, happy!” repeated the other.
“Well, she says that in her letter.”
“I'll give her being happy,” answered the young man.
He picked up his papers silently and crammed them in a pocket. After which, in a tone of deep disillusion: “Firstly,” he declared, “there is no question of being happy, when one sees what life is. It has no sense—that word—none. It's sufficient that one loves. Is anybody happy when they are in love? One does not even notice it. It's later on, that one gets the idea into one's skull, one is tormented...”
“Yes,” said Emile, “however...”
But the other stopped him.
“You for instance,” he questioned with obvious contempt, “are you happy?”
“I don't know,” retorted Emile who did not understand what his interlocutor was trying to get at. “It isn't very important.”
“Well, if your girl was to betray you as mine has done, what would you do?”
Emile was dumfounded.
“Answer.”
“But I haven't got a woman,” he stuttered. “What do you want me to say? I live alone and work.”
“And you never had one?”
“I... I...”
“Oh come, you can talk, you know.”
Emile felt uneasy, and was silent. He turned his head timidly, looked in another direction and all at once, stupefied, exclaimed: “Upon my word, Monsieur Bebert.”
Bebert nodded to him.
He was in company with a girl at a side table, and had not yet noticed Emile when the latter recognized him.
“What are you doing here?” said Bebert quietly. Emile did not dare put the same question. He laughed foolishly.
“You're out on the spree?”
“Oh! not for long,” explained Emile. “It was raining, I came to shelter.”
“So did we,” replied Bebert.
He called the waiter, and Emile during that time considered at leisure Bebert's new conquest who smiled impudently at him.
She was a dark girl, with large blue eyes and a very small mouth, who wore silk stockings and showed her legs far above the knee. Her dress was becoming. Her black curly hair was prettily cut on the nape of the neck and in a fringe on the forehead and she perpetually promenaded the tip of her tongue between two violently painted lips, moved it, wrinkled her nostrils.
“Who is it?” wondered Emile.
He lowered his nose sadly, drank a mouthful of wine, wiped his moustache. But Bebert was standing up. He came to Emile's table.
“Between men,” he began cheerfully, “there's no need to hide things, is there? Will you have a drink with us?”
“Thank you,” answered Emile, “I was just going.”
“Just as you like,” said Bebert. “Only”—and he winked— “you understand? Don't say you've seen me.”
“Why? Aren't you coming home?”
“Of course. In a moment.”
“Ah! All the better,” said Emile. “I met Irma to-night, she was looking for you.”
“You don't say so?”
“I assure you.”
“Well,” declared Bebert. “Don't worry. It'll be all right when I go home. But keep your mouth shut.Hein? You promise—”
“Go on,” said Emile shamefacedly, “don't be afr
aid. As far as I'm concerned, Irma won't be bothered. She'll never know anything. I promise you, Monsieur Bebert. Nothing.... Not that much... not a word. Not one....”
At the same time he took money out of his purse, pushed it towards the waiter, gave him a tip.
“Agreed,” said Bebert.
The two men shook hands, and Bebert added in a precise and detailed tone of voice: “And if you don't keep your promise, joking apart... I warn you, it will be so much the worse for you.”
Five minutes afterwards Emile was outside. He understood nothing of this suite of disconnected events, he cursed them, and was wondering what he should do next when he saw under the arch of the Metro the little merry-go-round in front of which he had stopped. This put the finishing touch to his bewilderment. He remembered the emotion he had felt standing there listening to the music, then the old man who had approached him to say: “Well then, my little man...”
“Yes,” he thought stupidly, “it is all over.”
He established such a strange connection between these words and the meaning he gave them, that he thought the old man must have spoken to warn him particularly and give him time to prepare. But prepare for what? Emile did not know. He only felt that something in him was broken and destroyed forever, and the more he thought about it, the more certain he felt this time it was the end. This idea moved him. It seemed unjust to him at first, intolerable; then he got used to it, for he felt all at once so utterly alone in life that he soon persuaded himself that he did not care for it, anyway. What was he doing on earth? He was tired, discouraged, without strength, without will. If he disappeared, no one would regret it. No, no one. He left Irma behind, and Belle-Amour, perhaps. But they were women, and Emile thought he heard his neighbor of thebrasserie sneer and declare that he was ready to murder his mistress and then kill himself. Why not? Emile began to ask himself seriously. The conversation he had had with the young man now acted morbidly on him, pursued him. He thought of the letter written by the girl Poiremat Cecile, and repeated her name aloud as he walked along. It seemed to him so natural and inevitable, that she should die from a revolver shot, that he saw her lying on the ground with blood on her temple which ran from the wound just as he had seen it run on the night when Bebert had attacked and stabbed him.
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